Blast

Pre-gig interview

There is a sleepy atmosphere in Café Halcyon on John Street at half past five.

Bourbon biscuits are stacked in a nearby bowl and Sammie, the clarinet and alto sax player, yawns.

I pull a tattered arm chair into the circle and ask Emma, the Norfolk born tenor sax and flutist, how it all begin.

Busking Circles

The band has grown from musicians who have met on the busking circuit. 

Two of the English contingent, Sammie and Fraggle, met in Dorset but the rest of the band bumped into each other living and busking in Barcelona. 

The most recent addition to the band is the bass player who has been playing with Gadjo for six months. 

I ask hopefully if they are looking for more musicians. Emma tells me that the effort of organizing seven people means that, from now on, only replacements will be required!

Gadjo, live in Stroud

Tour

Every year from May through to Setember, Gadjo tour Europe. The French vocalizing banjo player wearily explains that they have been fully booked this year and the tour has been extended a number of times. He rubs a pair of tired eyes.

Emma reels out the places they have already played this year which includes a large gig in Florence. 

For her, however, intimate performances are the best. Her favourite gig so far has been at a small venue on a Balearic Island.

Looking around the eclectic make shift Café with stuffing coming from the sofas and Persian rugs lining the floor, I wonder how they ever came to be here.

Emma and Sammie explain how the organisers of the Stroud Valley Arts Space attended one of Gadjo's concerts in France and asked them if they could include Stroud in their whistle stop tour of England. 

Lorries and Tents

When I enquire how they move around and where they sleep, Sammie is keen to tell me of his Lorry home which he has been gradually renovating for two years. 

Fitting four beds and storage, this has become his permanent lodging even during the Barcelona winter months. 

We discuss solar panel which provides me with another chance to have a jab at English 'summer' weather. Sammie says the shift to solar is too expensive and he is, for now, sticking to lorry batteries. 

I am able to snatch a quick photograph with four of the bands members before scurrying away, vowing to return in two hours.

Gadjo, live in Stroud

Flocking

In the alley opposite Stroud's recycled furniture emporium, within smelling distance of the fluorescent kebab shop; the rusty railing gates have been pulled back. 

A small table with a margarine tub till resting on it marks the entrance. 

There is already a queue as I draw near. A tall couple walks away with a disappointed look on their face. All the tickets have been sold out.
 
Unable to obtain complimentary tickets, I join people pressed to the sooty bricks and wait to be sold a surplus.

After five minutes I'm inside the fairy lit café. The local support band called the Laerie Faeries strike up and the Persian rugs are soon made invisible by bare feet and sandal straps.

Gadjo Live

Amidst roaring applause Gadjo take to the stage. The tuba, which started life in a New Orleans marching band, heads the musical procession with bouncing bass notes.

My knees yield to the 'bob' along with the rest of the tightly packed audience. 

The angular accordionist with hair knotted into twin buns moves theatrically towards the microphone to meet the banjo player in vocal chorus.

The music deliberates and thrashes in turn. Before I know it Gadjo are announcing the final song. The Stroud audience bays. 

They play three encores and refute a fourth. We sing a gypsy happy birthday to Sammie who, clad in a red flamenco shirt, is now 27.

I reluctantly disperse into the courtyard to sing Gadjo's praises with other Stroudies and fittingly catch a lift home in a battered farm truck. 

It leaves me at the bottom of my lane and roars away.